riven gets buffed but not Garen?????

{quoted}

correct, he does need to be reworked. As opposed to buffed.

Everything you say is invalid, Riot already said that he does need help, they just don't know when will they do something for him.

Weaknesses are irrelevant, this isn't a strategic discussion, this is a design discussion.

This is simply false. Power budgets are part of both designing and balancing champions and have nothing to do with strategy. Power budgets allow for champions with stronger weaknesses to have stronger strengths, and for champions with few weaknesses it requires that they have few strengths. This is not even remotely irrelevant.

Now, toxic has a number of meanings. Many people throw it out as a blanket term to describe anything they dislike, as a synonym to broken. You did not offer enough context to show whether you were that type of person or not. There are easy to use synonyms for the other uses of toxic, so requesting that you differ your vocabulary doesn't seem like that harsh of a request.

Now, you offered two points that describe when a champion is toxic. The first, if it applied to Garen, would require that he encourages people not to play, likely due to being unable to play against him. In this particular case you could use the word oppressive instead of the word toxic.

Unfortunately for your argument Garen is not oppressive. He has very little range outside of his base auto attack range, no gap closer, movement speed that has been both directly and indirectly nerfed recently, and had a fair portion of his early game shifted to the tacked on nonsense of his villany passive. His only CC has been reduced in duration for counterplay reasons and he has no reasonable amount of sustain for a champion of his type until level 11. His kit is one of the most straight forward kits in the game, with both it's strengths and weaknesses clearly visible to anyone attempting to learn the matchup. This is not the description of a champion who overwhelms his opponents, particularly early on. Oppressive is not an accurate word.

Your second point would state that Garen is not interactive in lane, and is "unfun". I'm going to ignore the unfun part because fun is purely a matter of opinion, with different people enjoying different things. For you he may be unfun, even though I enjoy facing a skilled Garen in lane.

Ignoring the fact that Garen literally has a passive that can be turned off if interacted with by an opposing player, I have to say I somewhat agree. Garen is supposed to be a very reliable champion, with little play making ability of his own but the power to punish an opponent if they make a mistake. While I wouldn't exactly say this design idea inherently supports non-interactive gameplay I do think players who do not properly understand the risk/reward ratio when facing Garen might feel forced into a far more defensive playstyle than is necessary. This is purely a matter of players lacking required knowledge, which is a much larger issue that Riot needs to fix.

Now, during the Juggernaut update Riot pushed Garen away from his old reliable self and toward something more flashy. They added something to him that did not perfectly mesh with his kit while removing things that do. Whether or not a champion should be built around the idea of being a known constant is a matter of debate, a debate that would seem to put Riot and I on opposing sides. That said champions who focus more on reliability than a feast or famine playstyle are not inherently more or less interactive than their counterparts. Garen does not force you into playing a particular way more than any other champion who fill similar roles. He simply does, and should do it, in a way that gives less reward for doing it well and less risk when doing it poorly. To call Garen non-interactive is to call all similar champions the same thing, and is a claim that will have to be properly supported.

TLDR:

1. To talk about strengths without talking about the accompanying weaknesses is to completely ignore what design and balance are about.
2. Toxicity is a blanket term, not a word that accurately describes what you're talking about. It has multiple meanings, and each of those meanings have synonyms that could be used instead.
3. Do not answer the OP in a reply to someone else. It's bad style and causes confusion. Make a new comment thread, or if you use chronological view just make a post without replying to anyone. Otherwise you're not responding to the OP, you're responding to someone else, and as such you should make an attempt to stay on their topic.

Now I actually do have some time to reply to that earlier post, so I'll quickly touch on the different design values you believe Garen is violating.

Mastery - As a long time Garen main I can assure you it is not unfulfilling to master him. There is a rather large difference between something being unfulfilling and simply being less fulfilling that other options, after all. What he lacks in mechanics he makes up for in reliably being able to handle knowledge based matchups.

Once you learn how to apply him to a situation you can do so again and again, with little variation. He is a point of stability in a game where you never know how your lanes will go. His win rate per games played is not fantastic, but it does show a direct correlation with between games played and increased win rate, which should be expected from any champion who allows for some level of mastery. I don't know where you got your information, but I recommend a second source.

Meaningful Choices - Both Garen and his opponents have many choices to make in game. Garen must decide what role he will fill in his team. If he is to be a primary damage dealer he will have to accurately judge which enemy champions will be a primary damage threat to him. Some opponents will do well, some will not. Some opponents will decide to focus him down, where as others would rather ignore him and get more value from their abilities on Garen's weaker allies. If Garen chooses incorrectly he will not only be easy to focus down, but due to how easy it is to kite him he will be all but useless without changing his entire build path.

Garen can also decide to be a secondary damage dealer, a bodyguard, and secondary initiator. He must decide between focusing on split pushing, team fighting, and roaming for picks. He must decide whether it's best for him to look for low risk fights and give his team a numbers advantage, or if he should throw his life away to help secure more difficult victories. His ult makes him particularly suited for the latter option.

Garen's opponents, on the other hand, must decide what to do with him. If he builds too much tank he can safely be ignored in lane, allowing them to farm up and prepare for later stages of the game. If he builds too much damage they must decide, should they gain a lead, whether to further their lead or suppress Garen further. Do you rush his tower down in an attempt to keep him useless, or do you stall things out and allow him to only get experience? Do you roam after the tower falls and allow him to catch up, or do you stick with him and force other enemies to assist him?

Each choice has a trade off with a risk attached to it. Each choice can lead to a very different outcome. If this is not what it means to have meaningful choices I simply don't know what a meaningful choice is.

Counterplay - All you did here was complain. You listed strengths and ignored weaknesses as any random complaint post would do. Maybe next time you can do more than write a collection of "what if" complaints. I suggest looking at individual cases where counterplay should exist but does not. At least then there will be something that can be directly replied to.

Teamplay - I don't think you're properly understanding what Riot means by teamplay. Split pushing is a type of team play, after all, and is not typically thought of as such. Good split pushing requires the entire team moving as one, with the split pushing force contesting objectives at the same time as the rest of the team. Do this correctly and it forces the enemy team to decide between the objectives. Do it poorly and one side dies without a meaningful trade in objectives.

Teamplay only means you are playing a given role that assists your team. You're not a lone player fighting off an entire team. This is not a point that directly effects champions, other than deciding what roles they are naturally skilled at given their kits. That Dev Blog was not only about champions after all, but rather League as a whole. To say Garen lacks "teamplay" is to simply misunderstand what Riot was saying.

Clarity - Only Garen's W has possible hidden power. Everything else about him is incredibly straight forward and easy to understand. You mention needing to use a third party site, but that's not a problem with Garen. That's a problem with how Riot handles providing champion information to players.

If you haven't stopped reading by now I bet you either skipped to the end or really just don't care what I'm saying. You're likely just going to pick my post apart and find the little things you think you can argue about. You'll ignore the points I tried to make and focus only on little inconsistencies where my personal experience with Garen is displayed rather than global trends, or you'll focus on your own personal opinion instead. You're not actually here to talk about Garen after all, and so all I can say is have a good evening. I'm done getting into extended arguments with people who have absolutely no interest in taking the opinions of others into account in an attempt to grow as a person themselves (probably not true, but at least I can hope I'll actually stop getting into this nonsense). You and I are done here.

If you want to talk about his weaknesses then historically he has won games by sitting out the earlygame and stalling through it WHICH IS ONCE AGAIN TOXIC and part of the reason potion master garen was nerfed away.

That was done? Even if it was it was during the past, probably in previous seasons, which by the way you cannot use as a source in this kind of argument as it will be irrelevant as soon as the next patch/season comes around.

again, strengths and weaknesses are nearly irrelevant, I'm not discussing champion strength with you. It doesn't matter if he is balanced or not, the question isn't "why isn't garen balanced" its "for what reason did garen not get buffed"

...

You mean to tell me that whether a champion is balanced or not has no bearing on whether they should be buffed?

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

and plenty of players find that he is a burdensome thing to use beyond silver.

They aren't ready to handle Justice.

None of which makes him any less toxic. Having no earlygame is not healthy and buffing this would lead to a buff to the consistency of a strong mid and lategame which are toxic therefore making any buff to this toxic which goes back to why garen wasn't buffed.

Duude, a stong mid and late game are not toxic. I don't know where you are getting this stuff from. Kog'Maw has a strong late game, is he toxic? (Technically he is, what with his caustic spittle and all) Brand has a strong midgame, is he toxic?

Being strong is not the same thing as being toxic, in fact I don't think you know what the word "toxic" means, and if you do you are not communicating this appropriately.

Plus I never said he had no early game, I provided examples to show you that he isn't OP/broken/toxic.

incorrect, he has to put points in his W by standing within experience range of dying minions. He could do this from inside a bush if he wanted and denying this to him is not practical in many cases.

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

I... I don't think you understand how Garen works. The description of his W specifically says that he gains resistances every time he kills a unit. His good looks are not enough to gain points from killing the enemy minions.

The fact garen doesn't get to play during his cooldowns is another sign that he is riddled with design issues. Again reason not to simply buff him.

[zombie-brand-mindblown] Dude. Dude. Dude. Plenty of champs are reduced to auto attacks when their cooldowns run out. Take ANY burst mage in the game, they use their spells, they just amble around and wait for their spells to turn back on. That is not a design flaw, that is making sure everybody isn't Ryze. If you want examples like Garen, Riven is also held back by cooldowns. The fact that she can kill most people before her cooldowns run out isn't important right now. The important thing is that when her cooldowns are up, she autos or repositions till they come back. That isn't a design flaw.

It would just be toxic if the standard ball weight was 200lbs. Its completely fair for a football to be 200lbs as long as both teams have to deal with it but it is a terrible and potentially harmful design.

Bruh, that example is just... inaccurate. That football you mentioned? It makes the game itself a problem, not one of the players, which in this case is Garen. The ally team doesn't have to deal with Garen.

which is why his outdated design is rarely imitated in other champs.

Bro, I assume you mean his "outdated" mobility. Have you seen Darius? He walks towards you, he doesn't dash or blink. Sion? Run or ult towards you, which is just fast running. Trundle? Walks at you/slows you. Which is still walking.

The point is that he is encouraged to do so and has been used for this very frequently in recent times and people struggled to do much with him when he couldn't do such a thing very well.

I'm not sure what ELO you are in, but experienced Garens do combo with their team. Every good player knows that no man is an island, that every champion is a part of a greater goal; wreck the enemy Nexus. Inexperienced players (and experienced ones with crappy communication) play as if they are alone, experienced ones play as one.

massive ball of stats and steroids which is again not healthy for the game

Wut. He has a silence and an execute, I think you're not giving him enough credit. And just who decides what is "healthy" for the game eh? You? Me? Riot? The people who put the game together? Theorycrafters? The LCS? The answer is all of us and none of us. We can't all act like we are the final authority on the game's health, especially not if we don't completely understand the game. I don't understand the game completely, so I cannot decide what is healthy for it based on my limited experience for example.

simplicity can be toxic as well. (see design value: mastery)

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

I think you need to look at these again, these are referring to the game as a whole and the players, not specific champions.

whether or not he is "surmountable" is irrelevant. He is toxic, whether he is OP or UP is irrelevant, even if he is balanced this is irrelevant to toxicity which I am stating is the reason behind him not receiving buffs.

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

calm down